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The
profit exceeded Wall Street expectations, however. The automaker
said it still expected full-year earnings of $10.2 billion and a
return to positive cash flow after burning through $2 billion in
the third quarter.
Net income dropped to $961 million, or 24 cents a share, from
$2.2 billion, or 55 cents a share, a year earlier.
Excluding one-time items, Ford said earnings were 26 cents a
share, beating the analysts' average estimate of 20 cents
compiled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Third quarter revenue was $35.9 billion, down 6 percent, and
North American operations revenue was $21.8 billion, down 8
percent.
Ford had signaled most of the major numbers at a September
investors presentation, and the results released on Thursday
were little changed. The company's shares were down about 1
percent at $11.76 in premarket trading and have fallen 16.5
percent this year.
Ford's pretax operating margins were down by about half at 5.8
percent in North America and 3.3 percent worldwide.
“What’s happening to the company is what’s happening in North
America,” Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks told reporters on
Thursday.
Shanks said three factors accounted for a $1.6 billion decline
in Ford’s North American pretax profit: costs of ramping up the
new Super Duty pickup truck, which has an average price of about
$62,000; a door-latch recall charge of $600 million recall; and
lower profits from the company’s F-150 pickup truck.
Ford is cutting production of the F-150 in the fourth quarter
and, in a new action, will idle one shift for a week at a plant
in Kansas City, Missouri, to reduce inventories of the truck,
Shanks said. The F-150 is Ford’s best-selling vehicle and one of
its most profitable models.
The company said pretax profit in Europe jumped to $138 million
from $9 million.
However, Shanks said the falling value of the British pound
would cost Ford $140 million in the second half of 2015 and $600
million next year. Ford is 80 percent hedged against the
currency for 2017, he said.
Income from Ford's Chinese joint ventures rose 26 percent to
$320 million. "China is very, very strong," Shanks said.
(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
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